Don Yelton, GOP Precinct Chair, Delivers Most Baldly Racist Daily Show Interview of All Time

Last night’s episode of The Daily Show featured an instant-classic segment on voter suppression and I.D. laws starring a painfully honest avatar for the darkest (whitest) corner of the Republican Party. The thing about Buncombe County Republican precinct chair Don Yelton, a conservative activist described as “the Rush Limbaugh of Western North Carolina,” is that he’s nothiding.

On the subject of the state’s new law meant to limit minority voters, Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi offers, “The law is not racist and you’re not racist,” at which point Yelton stops him, perhaps mid-overdose on truth serum. “Well,” he says, with a heavy pause, “I’ve been called a bigotbefore.”

Yelton knows. (“The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt,” he concludes.) But he’s never been shy about making his views public, as his gold mine of a Facebook pagedemonstrates:

He also knew what he was getting himself into. “The questions were such that the answers can be played with,” he told the local news before the episode aired. “I expect them to play with my answers for racism.” It did not takemuch.

Update: In case there was any doubt, Yelton meant what he said. “The comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them,” he told MountainXPress.

And, believe it or not, they went easy on him. “To tell you the truth, there were a lot of things I said that they could’ve made sound worse than what they put up,” headded.

“Let me make it very clear, Mr. Yelton’s comments do not reflect the belief or feelings of Buncombe Republicans, nor do they mirror any core principle that our party is founded upon,” said Buncombe GOP Chairman Henry Mitchell in a statement. “This mentality will not be supported or propagated within ourparty.”